Revealed: The skill employers want the most

A NEW survey has revealed the skills that employers value and how different they are to what university graduates think are important.

The QS Global Employer Survey 2018 has highlighted the misconceptions students have about what skills employers want and the areas where there is a graduate skills gap.

For the report released this week, more than 11,000 employers were surveyed around the world and their answers were compared to responses from 16,000 prospective students.

"Students do not fully understand how employers value skills," the report states.

"For example, students relatively overvalue the importance of creativity and leadership skills, and undervalue the importance of flexibility/adaptability and teamwork."

QS chief executive officer Nunzio Quacquarelli said the development of soft skills, such as team-playing and resilience, had become almost as important as that technical skills and knowledge acquired during a degree.

He said it was becoming more vital that universities prepared graduates for the world of work and this included the development of these skills.

"Opportunities for internships, study abroad, extra-curricular activity and active learning can all contribute to the development of these and other skills universities want," he said.

Annette Cairnduff, the general manager of research, evaluation and partnerships at the Foundation for Young Australians, said the results aligned with its own report, The New Work Reality, which found young people believed the key reason they couldn't get a full-time job was because they didn't have the skills employers were looking for.

She said workers with so-called "soft skills", or what she prefers to call "enterprise skills" such as problem solving, communication, teamwork and digital literacy, were in demand.

"Employers are already willing to pay more for young people who have these skills," she told news.com.au.

"They are hard skills to learn but they are the most portable of skills; they are skills you can take from one job to another."

While these skills are not going to replace the need for technical knowledge, as automation continues to change the working landscape, skills of a "higher order" will become more important.

Ms Cairnduff believes industry must play a part in the development of these skills alongside educational institutions.

"It's a joint responsibility and always has been," she said.

"The future workforce is going to have to learn on the job more than they do now."

She said automation meant entry level jobs young people used to do were now disappearing and people also stayed in education for longer. The opportunities to engage in real work and to get work experience were harder to find.

Businesses can help young people through internships or other programs, but students could also develop skills by working through workplace problems while at university or vocational education.

"It doesn't have to be the traditional apprenticeship type of approach," she said.

"The workforce has changed but the way we are preparing young people hasn't."

The skills employers ranked as the most important for graduates:

1. Problem solving

2. Teamwork

3. Communication

4 Adaptability

5. Data analysis

6. Resilience

7. Organisation

8. Technical skills

9. Creativity

10. Leadership

11. Language

12. Commercial awareness

The skills students thought were the most important:

1. Creativity

2. Organisation

3. Problem solving

4. Leadership

5. Teamwork

6. Communication

7. Resilience

8. Commercial awareness

9. Adaptability

10. Technical skills

11. Language

12. Data analysis

Young people don’t understand what skills employers are looking for.

MOST OVERRATED SKILL

The biggest difference between the two answers was for creativity, which students placed as the most important skill but employers ranked ninth among their priorities.

This was followed by data analysis, which employers ranked highly as the fifth most important skill but students ranked 12th.

Students were also confused by leadership, which they ranked as fourth most important, but employers rated as 10th.

Employers also rated adaptability highly, in fourth place but students put this in ninth place.

The only skill to feature on the top three for both employers and students was problem solving.

Interestingly, employers who hire MBA graduates place communication as the most important skill, followed by strategic thinking, interpersonal skills, management and then leadership.

"From an employer point of view, the ability of students to learn is far more important than the creativity or leadership that they may have already developed," the report states.

The report suggests students around the world underestimate how much employers value flexibility/adaptability and analytical skills, as well as resilience. They wrongly assume creativity, leadership and organisational skills are more important.

Which skills do employers really want?

DISSATISFIED EMPLOYERS

The survey also looked at whether employers were happy with the skills presented by the graduates they hired.

Employers were most happy with graduate skills for teamwork, which got a satisfaction score of 82. This was followed by technical and interpersonal skills, both on 78 points.

Problem solving, one of skills considered to be the most important, got a satisfaction score of 71.

Employers were least satisfied by negotiating and leadership skills, which got 58 points, followed by resilience on 60.

The low skill for resilience/dealing with conflict is significant as employers ranked this as the seventh most important skill.

In Australia, resilience was a key skill that students underperformed in, compared to other countries.

Employer satisfaction scores for resilience in Australia, as well as commercial awareness and organisation, were lower than the global satisfaction score.

But graduates did perform well on subject knowledge, data analysis and language, meaning these skills were more in line with the expectations of employers, compared to other countries.

Interestingly, across the Asia-Pacific, employers were least satisfied with creativity skills, in contrast to the worldwide results that listed negotiating and leadership skills as the least satisfactory.

Regional employers were however, happier with graduates' ability to work in a team, their interpersonal skills and technical skills.